The Clockmaker’s Revenge
Part One: The Abandonment
It was 5:30 AM on a Tuesday in February when my life—and my understanding of my family—shattered into a thousand irreparable pieces. The wind was howling outside our modest suburban home, rattling the windows in their frames with the kind of savage intensity that only an Illinois winter can deliver. We live in a quiet neighborhood just outside Chicago, the kind of place where neighbors know each other’s names and kids still play in the streets during summer.
But in February, it becomes a frozen wasteland where the cold doesn’t just bite—it punishes anyone foolish enough to underestimate it.
My phone started buzzing against the nightstand, vibrating so violently I thought it might walk itself right off the edge and crash to the floor. The sound cut through my sleep like a knife, dragging me up from dreams I couldn’t quite remember but knew had been pleasant.
My hand fumbled in the darkness, knocking over a water glass in my disorientation before finally connecting with the phone’s cool surface. I groaned, my voice thick with sleep, rolling over carefully to avoid waking my wife, Violet.
She’d worked a double shift the day before, covering for another teacher, and I knew she needed every minute of rest she could get.
Who the hell calls this early? My first thought was spam—those robocalls that seem to have no respect for reasonable hours. Or maybe a wrong number.
Some drunk fool dialing random digits.
I declined the call and let my head fall back against the pillow, already feeling myself sliding back toward sleep. But the phone buzzed again immediately, the vibration angry and insistent against my palm.
I picked it up, squinting against the harsh blue light that stabbed at my eyes. The screen was too bright, making me wince as I tried to focus on the caller ID.
Bruce Hammond.
My neighbor from across the street. Bruce was a good guy—Vietnam vet, retired postal worker, chronic insomniac who I’d sometimes see at his window at odd hours when I got up for water in the middle of the night. But Bruce never called.
Not even during the day, let alone before dawn.
“Charles?” His voice was tight, urgent, with an edge I’d never heard before. It cut through my grogginess like a splash of ice water.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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